I like to share
with you how we raise our children as Catholics. Be certain that this is
not a perfect model, just our own experience that we like to share with
you as it is difficult to raise our children these days. I apologize for
the informal format as time is a constraint for me to write.

1. Do it in the love of God and
the love of them.

Once a friend of mine asked me how I dealt
with teenager children as his were approaching adolescence and he did not
know how to scope with the change in his children's behaviors. I said,
" Actually it is really simple, whatever you do, do it in the love of God
and the love of them".

My dear brothers and sisters, the most important
task on earth for us as parents is to bring your children to Heaven, to
help them to receive their eternal salvation, not college education, not
nice car, house, job or anything else.

First thing is to love God in whatever you
do as a family or individual and the kids will know, respect, and
eventually imitate you in shaping their own lives for years to come and
for eternity. "As of my house, we serve the Lord." the patriarch Joshua
once said. When you put God first in your life and your family life,
you do not compromise with the Gospel living, you do not appear a hypocrite
to your children after leaving church after Sunday Mass. You build
a good foundation for your children in developing their moral and characters.

I often tell our children that their main purpose
in life is TO KNOW GOD, TO LOVE GOD, TO SERVE
GOD. Everything else is secondary.

In many ways I try to illustrate that principle
of Gospel Living: We pray as family and I pray often during the day; my
love for the Lord Jesus and Blessed Mother is not questionable to them;
we do not shop on Sunday; we do not watch anything indecent and violent
on Sunday or any other days; we are faithful in 10% offering of our income;
we do not rejoice or party on every Friday during Lent; we try not to talk
badly about anybody; we love and respect grand- parents and we command
the utmost respect from our children toward us; we point out vanities and
social ill and evil to our children; we do not encourage dating; we do
not have regular TV broadcast or cable even we all like sport, etc.

Our children know that we try to be faithful
servants to the Lord in raising them even sometimes we made mistakes
or failed due to our own weaknesses. But one thing for certainty, they
know that whatever Mom or Dad does or decides, he/she does it for the love
of them.

2. Pray as the family.

I cannot stress this point enough - it is a
must for families today to pray together to receive God's Grace in order
to love the Lord more and more, to love one another, and to defend our
families from the endless Satanic attacks. Every night we pray Rosary together
whenever it is possible for us to do so. We also often read the Holy Scripture
or spiritual readings for half an hour afterwards. Our little ones
also pick up Rosary and began reciting the Hail Mary with us. But often
they just watch a movie tape or playing with toys while we are praying.
We pray for a greater love of our Lord Jesus, a greater love for Blessed
Mother, conversion for all sinners, for our priests and religious, for
poor souls in Purgatory, for the protection of the unborn, and so on. We
pray because we love the Lord and our Lady, because we love our family,
and because we love to save souls for God.

And about reading the Holy Scripture, my 12-year
old daughter once said to me, "Dad, most of what I learnt about Catholic
Faith came from what you read for us from the pictured Bible when we were
little. " I was surprised but very happy upon hearing that. Personally,
I am a fairly new Catholic, only for the last eight years. And I have to
say sadly that most I have learnt about Catholicism, I did on my own with
the help of the Lord and Blessed Virgin, not from any priests, nuns, or
catechists. My brethren, it is therefore so vital that you and your family
learn our true Faith among the abundant heresies floating around us and
against the complete silence from the church pulpit. Teach your children
and yourself our Faith by frequent reading the Holy Bible, catechism, and
other spiritual readings. Learn about the Love of God, Sacraments, The
Holy Eucharist, Church's Tradition, Church's Laws, Veneration due to Blessed
Virgin Mary, Sins, and so on. You owe it to yourself your own salvation
and the salvation's of your children. All the tools and resources are there
for you to tap. You cannot face the Just Judge later and say, " Oh, I did
not know as nobody taught me anything!" If I can do this much for God and
for souls by being a foreigner to this land and the Faith, you surely can
too.

3. "A family without a father
is like a house without a roof."

The above-mentioned statement is a proverb in my native country.
I should rephrase it as follows, "A family without a loving
father like a house without a roof." I feel sorry for many fathers who
have no choice but spending a lot of hours at work, but many of them also
use work as excuse to stay away from home, to shake off their responsibility
as a father, to avoid hearing complaint from their worn-out, dispirited
wives. "Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves His Church." How did
Christ love His Church? He loves Her so much that He died for Her. Would
you love your wife enough to die for her? I know that I would enjoy my
lunch a great deal if I just went to Wendy or Burger King for a quiet lunch
while reading the newspaper, but everyday I came home to join my family
for lunch, to feed and clean the young ones, to take them for a walk, to
talk to my wife or listen to her frustrations or disappointments of the
day, or to share her good news. Afterwards, I was often full, but worn-out
and tensed-up. Everyday before walking through the door, I say a prayer
asking the Lord to give me strength to die to myself in order to serve
Him. My friend, you have to die to yourself to love and serve your wife
and your children. This kind of selfless father is the one your chidden
deserve and the one who can have the most meaningful compassion to his
wife. He will realize how much she sacrifices in raising your children
and what she has to go through everyday. I stress so much on your love
toward your spouse because you cannot have a good home for your chidden
if you do not have love and compassion for your wife. Before we got married
I assured my wife that "divorce" was not in my vocabulary ( I hate divorce),
but I also expected to have a full authority in every major decision being
made in our family. Like a kingdom which cannot have two kings, in our
family I am the boss who has to take pain to make every major decision
and fully shoulder the consequence, the boss who has to hand out
painful disciplinary actions to the children, who is the boss to serve,
not to be served. I came from a family where my mother and sisters served
the males of the family. Thus I now understand to the fullest extent of
what the Lord Jesus said, " I am the Master Who came
to serve, not to be served." You cannot love the Lord or fully know
Him through the Gospel if you do not live in It. Fathers, take charge of
your family before it falls apart or before you lose it forever. But to
command respect and submission from your wife and childen, first you have
to be a loving servant to your family.

(More tips to come if you care to read later.)

Commentaries
on our Present World and other topics

According to US naval intelligence, Iran has deployed
mines, antiship missiles, and small speedy boats to possibly block the
Straits of Hormutz, just in case the war spreads, using Russian-made submarines
(from worldtribune.com). And North Korea is planning the same. Iran delagates
are on the way to Moscow, a mission of peace or a mission of war? Iran
and Russia probably just wait for NATO to exhaust all their high-tech weaponry
on Yugoslavia and sink deeply in the mud and jungle of Kosovo before they
response to NATO elsewhere, not to mention after Russia receive billions
in aid from IMF.The New World Order that Bill Clinton and other European
atheistic socialist leaders dream of and trying to implement using
NATO muscles is incompatible to Chinese and Muslim cultures and politics,
and unacceptable to Russia as the latter in effect has to disarm themself
and become the second citizen in the world community. This New World Order,
without God, without family, and without morality will not be realized
as God has a different plan to save His faithful remnants. Besides, NATO
is fighting but shaking its knees at the same time. They fight but they
are not willing to die for their fight. Fighting cowardly always guarantees
defeat.

Isreal and North Korea will be tied more closely
to Russia & Iran Alliance as they think that they will be the next
target of "peace settlement"by the New World Order. Isreal probably will
be too involved in the Civil War with Palestineans or will become neutral
at the onset of World War III. North Korea will not sit still watching
NATO to build up troop to invade or bomb them. They will attack first and
remember that they have weapons of mass destruction which can be launched
all the way to Japan. (4/20/99)

Do you know that the present sex education offered to elementary
schools including Catholic schools is based on the "scientific" research
on children sex conducted by Prof. Alfred Kinsey from Indiana University?
These sex education now provide the young minds with graphic genital sexual
acts. Are these "lessons" any different at all from pornographic materials?
Anyway, do you know that the same Kinsey used to make illegal porn movies
in his attic? Do you know he was a racist, practiced bisexuality and violent
sex acts? Do you know that Kinsey provided his "research associates" with
timers to time the "orgasms" from the children that they molested or raped?
(From Human Life International)

Do you know that peanut or peatnut butter, raisin, and chocolate
are loaded with natural antioxidants which are good for you? So just take
a handful of peanut, raisin, and Hershey kisses to fight off common cold
and flu.

Now on the bad side, do you know that you consume the very same
carcinogenic (cancer-causing) chemical in your meat which was banned
in lubricating oil? In early 1970's, sodium nitrite was banned from
machining oil or coolant because it could combine with secondary amine
to form a deadly carcinogenic nitrosamine and would harm machine operators.
But until now, meat packaging poeple are still allowed to use up to 0.1%
sodium nitrite to preserve your meat, especially in lunch meat, hot dog,
ham, turkey, hamburger, sausage, etc. Without it, the meat would have a
greyish color instead of bright attractive red. Inside your body,
sodium nitrite can potentially react with any secondary amine or amino
acid to form nitrosamine which will tie up with DNA and consequently generate
cancerous cells. So the "healthy" menu should include a grilled
hot dog on a preserved bun, a big pickle preserved with BHT (butylated
hydroxy toluene), baked bean cooked with the flavor-enhanced MSG
(mono sodium glutamate), potato chips fried with patially hydrogenated
vegetable oil, and an artificially sweetened soft drink! No wonder we fall
dead left and right due to cancer!

Violence feeds more violence! There will be more school shootings
as long as violence is condoned in our society, violence in the womb to
the preborn babies, violence on TV, in computer games, violence in movies
and music. The whole culture promotes death and is fascinated with
killing and blood!! Kids can kill others and finally himself when they
feel like having nothing to live for, nobody to love. They feel utterly
alone and unwanted. So they continue to mass-murder to get publicity or
leave their own legacy as long as their parents continue to bring them
up with self-supporting bottle of formula milk, with day-care centers,
with baby-sitters, with big house, big TV, own phone and PC but with a
closed door and empty home with no sibblings, friends, relatives, and especially
without their own parents who are too busy working to make money and to
pursue their own carreers. Don't blame the kids, don't blame the guns,
blame the parents, blame the religious and political leaders!

Yesterday my wife squeezed our four-year old son and said, "
Oh, I love you so much. You are a gift from God!" Our little guy quickly
disagreed with his mother, said, "No Mom, I am not a gift
from God, I am a gift to God." Have
we ever thought having one more child for the love of God, to offer our
children up to Him as our gifts and sacrifices?

The decay of morality and evilness in our society today lay squarely
on the baby boomer and hippi generation of 60's, the generation which produces
Bill and Monica, and whimpy Republican Congress. Shame on them who led
the whole world into this ruin by abandoning their Faith and family traditions
which brought much success into their lives and in turn they did not give
their children and grand children to come the same chance they had. I will
have a hard time to take care the selfish generation with my hard-earned
Social Security money.

after Colorado school shooting, I hope NEA or National Education
Association will put prayers back in school now for their own sake.